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Entertainment Review

I, Frankenstein

What if Frankenstein's creature was immortal and found himself in a contemporary battle between good and evil?

And what if all that were brought to life in a 3D extravaganza of cheesy special effects and dialogue so wooden you get splinters?

That's I, Frankenstein, an experience that will let you imagine yourself to be in the middle of a chaotic video game. If it's a movie you're after, that's a slightly different story.

Either way, this thing is nuts.

Aaron Eckhart stars in I, Frankenstein as the famed creature sewn together from a half-dozen corpses and rudely jolted into life. We meet him in 1795, newly fashioned by Dr. Frankenstein and murderous in his rage and isolation. In a graveyard, he discovers that strange demons are after him and stranger winged gargoyles are protecting him. The monster wants nothing to do with either side.

He hides out from the world in a remote corner of the planet.

But centuries pass, and he eventually returns to mingle with mankind. Frankie finds himself caught yet again between the mysterious forces of good and evil. While humans go around oblivious, a war rages on earth between demons (recognizable by their rubber demon Halloween masks) and good gargoyles (recognizable by their big angel wings). And when the forces of good and evil battle, hell takes the baddies in a burst of fire and brimstone and heaven sucks up the good ones in a tunnel of light.

So what does Frankenstein's monster have to do with all of this? Turns out he's fully alive but ostensibly lacking a soul, and thus is the perfect model for all the demons in hell. (And politicians too, but that's another movie.)

If every demon could just find a reanimated corpse of his own, they could all return to earth in large numbers to rule the world. Heading up the evil demon quest is Bill Nighy, narrowing his eyes and crisply snapping the ends off his words as always.

What permits this fabulous nonsense to (barely) fly is the casting; Nighy, Eckhart and, as the gargoyle queen, Miranda Otto, are three actors an audience has been conditioned to trust. The fact that their gravitas holds up under this veritable volcano of Velveeta is a testament to their talent.

Sample dialogue: "You're only a monster if you act like one."

And, "I've never had to thank a human for anything before."

Visually murky and busy and full of little nods to various sci-fi and horror classics, I, Frankenstein is a B-movie extraordinaire and a bit of a nostalgia trip for anyone whose childhood involved the work of William Castle. The movie eventually gets bogged down by its own endless exposition and repetitive effects; an ennui sets in that even the sight of a buff, shirtless, Aaron Eckhart can't entirely lift.

This seems to be the sort of movie 11-year-olds may flock to, but even before the final epic battle between demons and gargoyles takes place, adults will have had enough.